The Peace Process

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  The actor accepted the compliment without protest.

  “How exactly would this work?”

  “On a night that you’re not performing, I’d come up to your place—my hotel room wouldn’t be a good idea. I’d ask you to simply sit at your desk—much as you do in the play—and listen.”

  “I don’t have a desk.”

  “A coffee table will do.”

  “How long would this take?” asked the actor.

  “An hour.”

  He corrected himself. “Fifty minutes. The usual.”

  “The whole thing’s ridiculous,” said the actor in a sudden change of mood.

  Once again, he returned to Variety.

  Solomon forgave him. After all, the man was an artist, subject to sudden flashes of temperament.

  He reached into his pocket, counted out $500, and slapped it on the table.

  “What about this?” he said.

  It was all of his travel money—but there was an ATM in the hotel and at least another $500 in his account.

  The actor stared at the money. Then he picked it up, not quite counting it, but giving it a quick riffle. He put it in his pocket.

  “We don’t have a performance on Sundays. Does that work for you?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Shall I prepare some lunch?”

  “No, no, that would spoil it.”

  The actor lived in a fifth-story walk-up—a single room with a small kitchen and a surprisingly formidable collection of books. One, Solomon couldn’t help noting, was a biography of Sammy Davis Jr. But The Best of Spinoza was on an adjoining shelf. Interesting man, thought Solomon. Not just an actor. Of course, he’d surmised as much. The actor had, unnecessarily Solomon felt, prepared a snack—crackers covered with peanut butter. Perhaps getting into character, he showed Solomon to the coffee table with a thin and serious smile, then sat opposite him, crossing his legs demurely. Solomon thought: This is exactly the way to begin.

  Not wanting to be rude, Solomon chomped down one of the peanut-butter snacks. A drink would have been useful, to wash it past his dry throat, but why waste time and ask? Thinking it only fair, he began by telling the actor of the three psychiatrists who had died while Solomon was in mid-treatment. One had expired quietly in his chair, just as Solomon was about to kick off a session. Surprisingly composed, Solomon had called 911. After the police had questioned him, he had respectfully faded away and written a letter to the man’s widow. Only in the weeks that followed did Solomon grieve.

  Three psychiatrists. Each one dead and gone. There was a slight flicker of concern on the actor’s face, and why wouldn’t there be. But then that, too, faded away.

  “It would be ego to think I had anything to do with the deaths, don’t you feel?”

  The actor shrugged and spread out his hands, palms up, as if to say, How can we tell? If only we had the answer to such questions.

  A perfect response, thought Solomon.

  He continued: “The last doctor who bit the dust felt it was important to deal with my feelings about money.”

  Bit the dust. Solomon was aware he’d used an attention-getting phrase, a little jokey, perhaps to defuse the pain he’d felt when he’d lost Mel Glickman, an important figure in his life.

  “And then of course the prostate caught up with him. Brilliant man. Brave too. Continued his practice to the end, although it was hell to see him squirming around in the chair. I could barely concentrate.”

  Was it possible that the actor winced and did a little reactive squirm in his own chair? Such empathy, Solomon felt. Incredible.

  He continued along. “So we never did get around to covering money, although something strange just happened, just now, right here in your apartment.”

  The actor’s eyes widened a bit, with what seemed to be authentic curiosity.

  “For the first time, I flashed on my mother’s first words to me about money. I was a boy of five.”

  And now the actor leaned forward, chin in hand, an elbow on his knee.

  “‘Money means nothing to me,’ she said. ‘It’s crap.’

  “The implication was that there are more important things in life—family, for example, although ours wasn’t so terrific. But I ask you—is that why I can hardly wait to dispose of money on those rare occasions when I have some? So I can wash my hands, metaphorically, and get rid of the crap?”

  The actor seemed doubtful. He did a half shrug this time, then reversed himself by looking thoughtfully off in the distance, not stroking his chin but holding it. Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly, as if to say, You may be on to something.

  “Great,” said Solomon. “That’s exactly how I feel. I’m so relieved to finally clear up my confusion about money.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “After three psychiatrists, and all these long years, you just come along and bam, you nail it.”

  The actor flashed an authentically charming smile. Solomon noticed for the first time how handsome he was. Why wasn’t he a star? Possibly he was a late bloomer. Solomon had a friend at the Morris Agency in Los Angeles. But this was not the time to get involved in the man’s career.

  “Then there’s the death thing,” Solomon continued, “something else we didn’t cover. I’ve never been able to quite get my arm around mortality. You live and you die and that’s it. Or, fat chance, there’s something beyond, an afterlife.”

  The actor expelled a little air from his nose, producing a snuffling sound. Solomon felt he could read the man’s mind.

  The great thinkers of history have been grappling with that question for centuries. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re not alone.

  “You’re right on that,” said Solomon, although, in truth, the actor hadn’t actually said anything. “There’s religion, of course, and God bless the folks who take comfort from it. I actually keep a copy of Ten Great Religions on my night table … but with each one of the faiths, there’s always that leap you have to make, or you’ll never get off the dime. And I can’t take that leap. To make it worse, I don’t even have a comforting philosophy. At my age, sixty-two, you’d think I’d have one. Maggy, that’s my wife, says, ‘Don’t worry, Nat. You’ll get one when you need it.’ I just love her for that.”

  Solomon almost added: “Don’t you?”

  The actor responded with an ingratiating smile and a little shake of his head. The message he seemed to be sending?

  You’re a lucky man to have a woman like that in your life.

  “I agree,” said Solomon. “And I am so thrilled that you and I are doing this. It’s worked out exactly the way I had planned.”

  The actor smiled again and nodded humbly, as if satisfied that he’d done a good job.

  Solomon glanced up at the kitchen clock and was surprised, alarmed actually, to see how much time had gone by. He felt he’d barely cleared his throat. And yet he’d eaten up a good slice of the session. He could ask for another hour, of course, maybe a half, assuming the actor didn’t have to attend a rehearsal or something. But this would seriously strain his budget. So he decided to cram as much nagging conflict as possible into what was left of the session.

  As if he’d read Solomon’s thoughts, the actor too glanced at the clock. He did a little roll of one hand as if to say, might as well get on with it.

  In a great rush, Solomon tackled his loss of tenure, his daughter’s arrest for shoplifting, a bitter argument with his oldest friend, and his EKG, the one that had frightened two nurses.

  The actor tried to keep up the pace with nods of understanding, flat-out chin strokes, encouraging grins, and an occasional frown, albeit a sympathetic one. But finally he held up his hand. He’d had enough. When he spoke, for the first time, his voice was soft and modulated, but it might as well have been a clap of thunder.

  “I have to stop you here. We’re almost out of time. How
can I help you? What do you want from me?”

  “Exactly what you’ve been doing. And I was hoping we’d get back to my mother. I believe it’s germane.”

  He paused a moment to make sure the actor was familiar with the word.

  The actor grinned, nodded.

  Somewhat reassured, Solomon pressed on.

  “She was awfully smart, but she didn’t know what to do with herself. Once a year, she’d make a big deal over painting our tiny apartment in the Bronx. She was ten times more intelligent than my father, who worked in the garment center, and she clearly should have been the one who was out in the field while he stayed home. But that would have been emasculating. Or so went the culture. So she stayed in the apartment and brooded. Each morning, after she had a cup of coffee, she would hail a cab on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and tell the driver to just drive, it didn’t matter where. And she would talk for about an hour, essentially what we’re doing. Then she’d come home feeling better, even looking refreshed. All this, first thing in the morning, and she hadn’t even gotten out of her nightgown. …”

  “Her nightgown …” the actor repeated thoughtfully.

  “That’s what I said. Her nightgown. What point are you making?”

  The actor did a modest shrug. It was just a thought.

  Solomon reflected for a moment.

  “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Why didn’t she get dressed? She did more than talk in that cab. Is that what you’re saying? That really is a low blow. Completely beneath you, actually.”

  Unsettled, Solomon took a moment to pull himself together.

  “I’ll concede she was a little flirtatious—there was one time in Miami when I was twelve years old and I walked in on her and the hotel manager. Who knows what they were up to. Come to think of it, there was something about a comedian in Monticello. It was probably nothing. The same thing with the insurance man.

  “But first thing in the morning? In her nightgown? In the backseat? My mother? Mom? Who spit blood when she had me? Made believe she was chewing food when I chewed as if to make sure I didn’t choke? Stayed up all night, putting hot compresses on my foot when there was a suspicion that a wound might be gangrenous? All the while mumbling to herself, ‘This is my lot. What did I expect? I’m a mother.’ She gave up theatre tickets to a Broadway show that night. Handed them to the doorman. A hit musical. And what do you do, gonif? Throw her under a bridge, nightgown at her neck, legs splayed, rolling around in the grass with a strange cabdriver. While my poor father goes blind sewing shoulder pads on Seventh Avenue.”

  Near tears from that last image, Solomon got to his feet. Only the knee kept him from leaping over the coffee table to get his hands on the man.

  “I have to give you credit. You are some sonofabitch. Why I ever trusted you I’ll never know. You’re not getting the other five hundred.”

  “You go too far, sir,” said the actor, suddenly out of character, taking on a role he’d played in a Restoration comedy.

  “Not another dime,” said Solomon, starting for the door.

  He stopped and called back.

  “You’re a lousy actor too. I can see why you’re working in toilets.

  “And I guarantee you this,” said Solomon, with a theatrical flourish of his own. “You will never make it to Broadway.”

  The Strainer

  I’d always wondered what it would be like to give a party in the apartment—we’d only lived there for a year—and then all of a sudden I found out, except that it wasn’t the guest list I’d had in mind. There were four tall, polite cops drinking coffee I’d gotten from the Palestinians in the all-night gourmet deli on Seventh Avenue. And a whole flock of emergency workers who were crowded around Jenny, trying to find out how it happened.

  “Were you on the john?” one of them asked.

  “Straining … ?” another put in helpfully.

  Apparently, a lot of people in Manhattan have heart attacks when they’re straining on the john. It wouldn’t surprise me if they actually called them “strainers.” After a little coaxing, Jenny admitted that she was one of them, and once she got that out of the way she was off to the races. They got stuff out of her you’d have to torture someone like me to admit. Was she a smoker? Uh-huh. Drinker? You bet. Any family history of coronary disease? Absolutely—a whole ton of it, mostly on the male side, dating way back to the grandfather who was a wrestler in Skokie, Illinois.

  She didn’t have to tell them about the thirty pounds she’d put on—they did have eyes. What surprised me is that she didn’t fill them in on the dope we smoked that was supposed to bring you to a New Level where the thirty, actually forty, pounds didn’t matter and it was all right if it took you till Shavuot to get your dick in gear. And it worked too. I don’t know what I’m complaining about. But we had an agreement to only use it on Saturday night, and I know for a fact that Jenny was sneaking puffs of it all week long during Seinfeld reruns. How she got on the subway to Bensonhurst the next morning to counsel troubled Pakistanis is beyond me.

  The dope was one thing, but when you put it together with the six-packs and the fried this and fried that, not to mention the Nat Sherman Cigaratellos, it was no surprise she was hooked up to twenty different kinds of monitors and being asked if she was a strainer. The woman who held the IV equipment said she loved the apartment. Jenny thanked her and said it would look better when we painted it.

  “We’re thinking of French yellow.”

  The IV woman made a face—she wasn’t so sure about French yellow—but it was great that she loved the apartment. We had the high ceilings and the whole loft effect, but I was a little insecure about the view, since all you could really see was a bunch of people in the next building bent over tables doing graphic design. Actually, you could make out a little bit of the Chrysler Building, but you’d have to stand way over in the corner near the bookshelves and get up on your toes. And you have to remember we came from fourteen rooms and a huge spread right down the road from the ocean. All right, it was Nova Scotia, but still, we had all that space and the cragginess and we were a little spoiled. Anyway, I loved the new building, the doormen, the area. It didn’t even bother me that there were all those blind people running around and every third store sold office chairs and that Zagat called our neighborhood “The Dead Zone.” As far as I was concerned, that added character. I just didn’t want to live there alone.

  The woman who loved the apartment said they had to take Jenny over to Lenox Hill—just to be on the safe side. Jenny asked me to pack some things for her and to make sure I included fresh panties. Why she had to throw in the “fresh” part is beyond me. Actually, it related to a joke of ours. “I got you some fresh coffee.” Or “I brought you a fresh Daily News.” It’s the kind of routine you have to be married to someone for a couple of decades to appreciate. It’s not like you pick somebody up at a club, spend the night with them, and start doing that kind of material the next morning. But the ER people didn’t know any of this and they probably thought that Jenny had two sets of panties—fresh and not-so-fresh.

  I asked the blood-pressure guy if he could step aside so I could get to Jenny’s dresser. And then I remembered there had been a mix-up and our laundry had been delivered to the yenta in 6B who had questioned my decency. He’d been lying in wait for me next to the salad bar at D’Agostino’s.

  “Have you no decency?” he said.

  And he said it with a lisp too—I’m sorry, I can’t help that—so that it came out de-thency. Evidently, Gary, the Portuguese water dog, had barked at two o’clock in the morning (2:10, the yenta wrote it down) and cost the guy a whole night’s sleep. I didn’t hear any of this, since I always insert Mack’s Earplugs to counteract Jenny’s snoring. But I took his word for it and apologized, although frankly I didn’t appreciate my decency being called into question. What was I supposed to do, start listing my charitable contributions?
You can’t win that one, so I said I’d see what I could do, which was very little, since Gary had just come in from Nova Scotia and he probably missed the salt air. He hadn’t settled in to the city yet. The neighbor swanned off—my new word—and the next day the building manager handed me a petition saying I was spoiling the quality of life of the tenant in 6B. He had gotten four of his yenta friends to sign it, saying I was spoiling their quality of life as well. Well, I really lost it, right out there in the lobby.

  “What about my quality of life? Have you seen the trash that guy drags in here every night? This was supposed to be a family building. It was in the brochure.”

  And then the second I said that, I felt awful. For one thing, even though we didn’t have long discussions about it, Jenny and I knew the building was a little gay. Sixty percent, easy. And there was a contingent who you didn’t know what they were. It wasn’t an issue. As to my neighbor, it’s true he had a new partner every twenty minutes, but they were basically clean-cut, decent-looking individuals. There was one ratty-looking guy with a moth-eaten beard, but even he could have been some kind of academic. Or maybe it was a cousin. So I apologized to the building manager, who said he was only doing his job. I didn’t even get into a whole Eichmann thing. He went off muttering, “There’s one in every building,” and I didn’t know if he was talking about me or the neighbor. He was terrific at being neutral, which is probably why they hired him and gave him the free apartment.

  I was so upset by the experience that I made an appointment with the rabbi. He’s not really a rabbi, he’s a shrink who’s Orthodox and wears a yarmulke, which threw me off in the consultation. Actually, it was Jenny who found him, but she didn’t prepare me for the yarmulke. He charges $385 an hour, and where he got that figure I’ll never know. I’d say it was in the Diamond District if it wasn’t so blatantly anti-Semitic. On the other hand, I was used to Nova Scotia prices, where everything costs forty cents. And he is good. Very bottom-line. He doesn’t want to hear about the uncle who grabbed your dick at a Mets game—that’s history, let’s get on with it. Actually, that’s Jenny’s style too, with the troubled Pakistanis, and if she had just sat with me for a few minutes I could have saved the three eighty-five. But apparently there’s some rule that says you can’t treat your husband. So with regard to my neighbor, what the rabbi basically told me for the three-eight-five was to forget it. And I more or less did. The next time I met the guy in the elevator I gave him a haughty look and thought that was the end of it. Except that now I had to knock on his door and say he had Jenny’s panties. Assuming the cocksucker wasn’t wearing them.